Special Board of Education Meeting 8/22/2023

001uh that works to diminish individuals itself you know the thing is just that you know we should be a champion um thank you see we don't need actions we wouldn't as a committee okay that's good you might finally get a win oh my God thank you foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] hey [Music] um I'm gonna go ahead and call our meeting to order here it's uh five o'clock this is August 22nd 2023 and this is our special meeting of the Board of Education um uh let's start with our Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it says one nation under God indivisible and justice for all okay and Lori would you take hold please Christopher Abel here Ms

002Hanson presidency here Matthew Spaulding yes and Tony vestelica here thank you and our first thing is our consent agenda and there are two documents there the August 8th regular board meeting and also the closed session meeting minutes and I would need a first and a second motion um to approve those second okay um all those in favor say aye aye aye any opposed okay motion carries our next is our report of the superintendent and our sisa seven uh the director Dr Colleen Tim is running late uh so we're just going to move on to the next item if that is okay with everyone you see no objection we'll move on to the Personnel report and we will need a first and a second to approve that next solution emotion and second by Chris okay any

003discussion on the Personnel report at all yes Mike yes please sorry about that it's all right on the Personnel report um you'll notice that I said on behalf of the district I'd like to thank all of the churches for the willingness to change the respective teaching assignments for 23-24 meet the educational needs of the students I just wanted to name these people okay and uh what's what's occurring here is that we have situations where we have positions that we have not been able to fill upon which you know we have students that are meeting face-to-face with teachers and we've got some shopping candies done some things with special education and uh to meet the educational needs so I want to on behalf of the district they thank these teachers Deb St Peter Angela blasca uh

004Lotz Aaron we really appreciate their willingness to to assume in uh different different assignment for 23-24 and the other thing if I may uh I'd like to go on to Uh current different vacancies that we have right now uh associate principal at Lincoln and we have uh another interview start for Thursday and we've had a high number of people apply we've actually interviewed a lot we just haven't found that quite that right bit but we have another person we're going to bring in on Thursday and it's for the administrative personalized learning we had a first interview today we have a second one set up for Thursdays feeling good about that situation um as I've said before the school of Psych we just haven't been able to find anybody with a School site situation uh grade

005five elementary school that has been filled with an internal movement um still have an English language learner position at a middle school we have a couple positions here in middle school right now we're working on with a person from another District that might come in and be able to help us with Ela and meeting at one of the middle school so that's how they're that's out there pending a little bit and the special education with relative to the elementary school we've filled those two slots we still have three of the high schools that are working to figure out what we're going to do to manage that situation and then we have our Middle School we have the orchestra of Orchestra position let's go ahead and make it and right now we we have a potential

006candidate to see where how it goes so um yeah I have a question I don't know where else to ask this since it's nowhere on the agenda but um where the math where the math people hired with the with the with the current program in you know in math education I mean I you know having having read uh Laurie Laurie Williams stuff uh it seems to me that you know we'll be back to the the sort of we will be back to a stabbing situation that existed in 2010. I mean there's a lot of there's there's two ftes gone four FTE is gone etc etc and it appears like we've given up on this this math program that had been working pretty successfully is that is that true or not I mean what or were

007we just trying to feel just trying to fill um you know what we could in this was there any was there any reference to the math program that we have already in the schools that was working let me just start with this and I've never turn over um we had a recent grade resumes in a recent second grade resignation at Jefferson and we posted and we had the one fifth grade position out there for a week most per week zero catons zeros I mean in my lifetime in this Perfection if somebody said to me you're gonna post an elementary position and throw candidates after a week I said yeah zero camp so we looked at internally because obviously we all understand that we've got we've got to put somebody in front of those students and

008kind of a second or fifth graders but obviously we looked internally what positions do we have out there that maybe we're gonna have to pull for a year and move and we ended up moving some positions in and uh one of them I was in math position from Monroe coaching position from Monroe and Madison and another one was from Franklin so so what about the program you know I only would have had to do that um I think it was really tough it wouldn't have had to do one to pull those math coaches and put them in the classroom that was not I mean that was really like we exhausted all measures down to the point where we have certified staff are they certified in the right area um we can't have second graders without

009a teacher so I think it was a really tough decision it's not it's all a reflection I'm giving up on the math particular the second concern is the the McKinley the McKinley situation are we kind of giving up on that too I mean you didn't mention that there's any search for a new principle there we uh wait a minute second round interview on Thursday you're feeling very hopeful look at that situation yeah I have a question about that it seems to have taken us two weeks to post that position is there a reason that it I mean I think I was aware that the resignation on August 2nd Maybe and it wasn't on a weekend last Wednesday when I checked I'm just wondering what was there a delay or did something happen that I mean

010two weeks this time of year is a lot of time yeah yeah there was some discussion relative to the programs out there and we're going to maintain a full FTE of administrator for those programs or work we're going to do something maybe a little different and then some health issues have been and here we are today so were we not aware at this level of the job description and what that person did and that's concerned me a little bit that yeah and that position has been in the district for a few years and no is on the board there for 10 years so it's longer than 10 years you know I just I that really concerned me it took that long we're struggling to find administrators we're struggling to find teachers and we don't post

011that for two weeks um besides the staff out there and I saw the letter that was sent today there are a lot of concerns and people ready to pack bags and leave and they were good good people so I I don't know what happened but I just don't think we can let those situations happen like that again well let me let me just ask about the the other things that were considered uh I you know to to wedge this in this is a question for the superintendent not for you Mike I got a call from a realtor saying when were we going to sell Madison school and I also have heard that there is a kind of a plan being discussed maybe just maybe just BS just hot air but there's a plan being discussed

012so like uh eliminate eliminate close close down Madison School and uh um and and also like really really you know trans you know really change the whole model for for uh for McKinley uh and do some of the stuff some of the stuff it's saying though that they're doing in Madison and etc etc what's the what's the status of what's the status of Madison School well you know first of all I don't have any idea what you're talking about with the information that you're getting that sign information that's getting to me so I don't know how to respond to that well it's in the community I got a call from a realtor that's been in this community I imagine there could be a lot of stuff out in the community yeah well I would say

013I mean one one thing I just want to intervene is um you know we're trying to improve the Personnel report and real estate is not part of the Personality yeah right yeah but but but all of these have personal implications I guess don't they uh I ask about the the principleship at McKinley and um and Mike gave me an answer and you know so I assume we're going ahead with that uh but you know there's other things that that have that have kind of disturbed me some and uh there's no way no way to raise those issues anywhere else on the agenda tonight other than that would you feel me do you like uh uh that put on a future agenda regarding Madison School and other buildings for sale if that's a possibility oh sure

014I I it definitely would I think you know if it's being talked about it should be talked about with the board I'd like to have a question for you um I see that you don't have nothing under technology education and positive arrangement of that covered okay and then I wanted to also tell you you're doing a great job because I got a call yesterday by a former classmate of mine at UW Stout asking if I would teach tech ed in Sheboygan Falls so that's how hard everybody's looking they're going over a decade of relationship or go give me a call out of the blue and say hey can you teach it here because we have no teachers as well so thank you for what you're doing and I understand it's not easy let me follow

015up on that because I think the Board needs to know this so we have a Tech head Bank in Seattle Washington and uh and um we had hired a person and after about 10 days got an email saying hey I've just found my dream job I think I might have shared this and uh that was the end of that so the position was posted one candidate one candidate that we weren't interested in anyway um didn't go anywhere so uh so then I was thinking okay referred in an intern for second semester we could maybe cover it with an intern well I was thinking maybe I was thinking at the time the intern could teach all the classes that's not the case if you have an intern they can teach 50 of the classes okay well

016that's very short yeah we've been approved for an internship for a second so that's the protected all right um and just to add to that there is a young man who has been in our buildings with in the area who is teacher a year from now we've been recruiting to come to Manitowoc to do his internship with us and then hopefully we'd hire the person and we're fully staffed with tech ed going forward in a year from now you are absolutely correct I mean I mean these positions are very very challenging to fill and I have to say this too I I just I want you to know that all of our directors all of our directors all of our billion administrators it's been a one heck of a team effort here one heck of

017a team effort and we have we are getting to the place where having all the seats filled and it's and it's it's been a real challenge this summer but it's been hard work but it's been rewarding work it's it's been a heck of a team effort so I just want to sort of I want these people to know how much I appreciate all the building principles and records for all their help I want to say that at UW Stone on the directors back when I was there they uh our professors enter Breakfast after us you can get an internship you are doing amazing and it was unheard of to get an internship uh second semester I was actually able to do that at Two Rivers High School but he had such a boost for a

018young person coming out of school with debt to get paid to teach one or two courses right um so thank you for giving that opportunity to an individual but that is an honor for that student to become a teacher you know essentially seven eight months before graduation thank you for giving that opportunity and you feel confident that they're going to do their job I just uh I spoke with him I think the last appointments are Thursday night or the third time and all indicators are that it's going to come to to Manitowoc and uh I think we'll probably know october-ish for sure where he's got to solidify his decision and uh is he doing student teaching here as well or so the internship is in lieu of student teacher so you schedule the student teach

019somewhere second semester but if you do the internship with him the benefit to him is he is totally solely responsible for two and a half classes he gets paid forty five hundred dollars this is our commitment and 500 for any professional development so it's in lieu of school teaching so um so the benefit to him is he makes a little bit of money foreign ultimately we are looking to help a second semester but we're more looking for a year from now I have two really solid Tech game teachers in a middle school we really are the one we hired that we already have at Wilson top notch top shelf I was just gonna add to that great job Mike and everyone on the team you know I know it's been a challenging environment and I

020didn't want to point out you know even though things aren't exactly where we hope they be at this point we are doing a lot better than other districts comparatively that are larger nearby uh from reports that I've read so uh just keep chopping away and uh you know let's get better where we need to you know we should be in my opinion I you know with what Biff was saying if it took us a couple weeks to post something we should probably be more proactive on that just from a contingency basis along but other than that I think you guys are doing a really good job in a difficult environment so keep it up okay any other discussion about the Personnel report okay see none all those in favor say aye aye any opposed okay

021motion carries and I want to skip back um to uh Dr Colleen Tim please come up hi everybody thanks for giving me a few minutes of your time I have some goodies I'm gonna send around including um send a couple each way here some brochures that you can take a look at so clean Tim agency administrator at cesa7 I have been there six years the last two as agency administrator previous to that it was a long time administrator superintendent principal in your neighbor Mishicot so I had the honor of leading the turnaround effort that we did up there and now love coming out to support our 38 School District so there are 12 of us in the state 57 Services Northeast Wisconsin from Washington Island down through Green Bay Pulaski school all the way down

022to Random Lake and Cedar Grove Belgium so we service um about uh just under 90 000 students and over 8 000 educators so in this brochure if you put your camera phone on there it'll take you to our website and give you some information so asisa is provided for in-state statute we are a completely entrepreneurial organization meaning we get no funding and we have no Levy Authority so all of our funding comes from Grants and contracts with the state and federal government and with you our districts so part of what we do is compliance work when legislators pass legislation and DPI gives us directive to implement we often get a contract with DPI that we can come out and help your districts Implement your requirements at no cost um then we write for a lot

023of other grants and contracts to bring other low and no cost services to you and then we have contracts with you so Cesar Seven's had a contract with Manitowoc for a number of years we've helped with literacy with El with math so variety of services that we've provided so if you look in the brochure you're going to see if course that we provide the support around your core academics so whether again that's your compliance work or your own District Improvement we come alongside your team and bring our Collective expertise to help move you forward on your student achievement goals you'll notice a timely topic based on your last conversation we also help with licensing so we have a contract with the state and a gentleman named Aaron malcheski in our office is a phone call

024away for all of your staff members here to help you get people licensed to come into the field so you have the conversation about tech ed if you knew that you had somebody in the industry who wanted to be a teacher there's a pathway to that right it comes with The Real World experience that they have and we can help them earn a teacher license if they want to add on a license because you need them you need that math you do earlier you have somebody who's licensed in another area we can help them with that their District sponsored Pathways we run into Development Center there are a variety of ways but this is probably our busiest office within our office at this time of the year is to help you you all find licensed

025people so that's a big service that we provide it's at no cost because we have a contract with the state um so a variety of other things that we are running and offering we've done a lot of mental health work uh this summer we've been able to have some funding to to provide that at no cost one of the things that we here is at mental health issues and student behaviors is one of the biggest drains on our staff so you talked about retaining staff I think a huge part of that right is is getting our arms around the mental health issues and the behaviors so we have a team of people who are trained again that can come alongside your team and help you develop the strategies that you want so the behaviors are

026in place and you can focus on those academics another piece of what we do is is youth apprenticeship we've picked up some Manitowoc County schools and youth apprenticeship we partnered with the greater Green Bay chamber and with the luxembour Casco schools they each had run uh do the pressure of Consortium they asked us to get involved and the cc7 Consortium is now the fastest growing Consortium in the state in fact we accounted for one third of the growth in the state last year we serve over 1 000 students last year about 19 high schools I think we have 23 high schools coming up 600 business partners all over Northeastern Wisconsin a big part of our focus is to ensure that every student is next level ready so those four carers who come in how do

027we make sure their next level ready for 5K the kids that are walking across the stage and getting their diploma how do we ensure that they have a diploma by Design and they are Next Level ready so that's the focus that we bring we have a huge presence in the academic and career planning world and ensuring that when students leave your settings they're ready for whatever is their plan that they have designed by themselves and of course working backward to your 4K so a variety of services we try to bring as many low and no cost things as we can to wear an affordable option we know that you have choices in how you spend your professional development dollars we hope that we are your partner of choice always if we don't provide that service

028we want to be able to go and partner with somebody find a way to get you the service that you need our success is measured in your success so we are committed to this area um a long-term memoranda on the Manitowoc chamber board here I still work at the Boys and Girls Club I've hired a lot of people from Manitowoc sorry about that when you're talking about your personality um but we're very committed to the success of Manitowoc so I think you have great things ahead for you we're really excited for you and and we can help along the way we happy to do that so thanks for the time today thanks Colleen any questions at all for Colleen before she and I just I Heidi I don't know if you wanted I uh so

029if you look on the back here you can see Stacy opali she was the um principal over at Madison and she is now at cesa 7 and she has a good connection with our directors um and so I talked to her the other day and um how she's humanly and how working out so different things that we can partner with so that's great she's a great connection for yourself we love having I've had her a couple times and I would keep hiring so again we're a phone call away and and happy to help anytime well thank you for coming and meeting yeah I'm gonna stay with the rest okay all right um so our next is our monthly donation list and that'll be presented by Angela included in board book there are none that require

030approval just two uh one from the Green Bay Packers and then Lean on Me Lakeshore Lean on Me late sure there was an additional document that was good with this that it was just for some uh kits for students with type 1 diabetes uh just nice to have that donation have that for our district and then for the Green Bay Packers they had provided some reimbursements for ad donations and uh and some of it was for reading so it was a couple of uh a couple of donations anyway from Green Bay Packers so and actually I could clarify this on next month's if you'd wish for me to do so but um it was twenty two hundred dollars two grants one was for 1200 to be split between 12 teachers and the other one was

031a thousand dollars for library books for the school also for Madison so uh just from the Green Bay Packers so nothing never quite as appreciated people okay any questions at all for Angela no these special interest groups why aren't they special interest groups well I'm still like you know bewildered about the definition of what that is yeah it's being applied I wasn't asking you you randomly asked oh yes I asked um I think they have a non-profit you know effort that uh you know a specific special interest they don't see that they have to be for specific purchases other than just you know why and then yeah no I mean I don't know if uh Jim would like to talk to that at all or you know nothing to offer okay they don't have any

032political opportunities no I guess not I mean I don't know it's green and yellow I mean do some other special interest group stuff you know we wouldn't accept that one time I don't know I mean you know you know why I'm raising this because the argument I think I think you know we haven't really had a justification for why one quote unquote special interest group in the community is is being treated like a leprechaun so uh that's that just let it go um okay so the next thing on our agenda is our district activity update yeah a few things to report uh last week we welcomed new features uh it was very effective for educator week um all sports are full swing uh last Friday was the first shifts of football game and the ships

033beat Appleton West 29-6 and this Friday the ships will welcome our friend from across the Lake Michigan monashores obviously the ferry is not working so they're taking a different ferry in my understanding and we're assisting with picking them up uh with bus system when they're over here uh just another thing one of the board members had comment in terms of it'd be nice to start celebrating this more this week you know it enters our community so taking some recognition for not only our academics but also for our extracurricular activities we work to do that uh this week we welcome the ball back uh back all the staff and staff has participating now in SFA training so they're a six cents a day you know the four days ahead here with training with SFA and that

034seems to be going very well so we got a great start um I know Stacy had attended I'm hoping some of the others will feel comfortable stopping it in to get sites during the week to see all the trainings going uh the Jefferson Elementary playground you have that in front of you your invite is completed the playground revealed is scheduled for Wednesday August 30th at 3 45 p.m board members are also invited uh and the other thing I had a great follow-up conversation with an alumni uh Tim Pagel on 1975. uh him and some others we probably spent uh an hour on the phone really great conversation really there's a lot of interest in terms of um the Lincoln Tower in just just the school district in terms of what uh some of the classes

035could do uh and and so I'm very excited about this I told them that I thought the board was very open and very supportive of this and so I'll be following up with him and two or three of the other people that he's been working with and it was just very encouraging very exciting he likes where the direction of the board is going and just really positive a one back and helping to extend some of that by getting uh our alumni connected as well as the community so it was really exciting I look forward to keeping you posted with that nice okay okay no unfinished business new business we have an out-of-state travel um our energy Specialists will be doing training in Texas um Angela would you like to present a little bit about that

036sure we've been very fortunate to hire a brand new energy specialist Jim haveman comes from Sheboygan area and he's joined our team we're bringing him on staff and getting him all uh trained in and familiar with all the buildings and Richard Peterson's been doing a very very nice job of working with him to kind of show him the ropes of what he's done and then uh connected with our contract for synergistic the people that we consult with on a regular basis are working to bring him up to speed on on what we do for the program as well so uh this is just a nice opportunity and standards for us to send them for the trainings with us other energy Specialists and learn so we have a motion sorry we require motion Chris to prove

037okay second one second second Carrie okay um any discussion about that uh the out-of-state travel you've seen none all those in favor say aye aye any opposed okay and then um the next is to approve our depositories for our district funds Angela this is an annual approval for our depositories that is pretty standard our primary banking is with Bank First National and other than that our other primary holder of funds is uh the lgip the state local government investment rule is what it's called and so that's where our main funds are we typical and standard practices to list all of them just that we could potentially do business with over the course of the year so it's just a standard approval to to share these and and have approval annual emotions second by this any

038discussion about those we've seen none all those in favor say aye any opposed he carries um and then the uh the last one under there is the recognition of our board Attorney Services Angela correct uh annually we also just uh reviewed with the board and our we work with for legal services so we have two primary firms that we work with on reason and then be a little better so I have three main primary attorneys that we work with on a regular base basis James may see William Fisher and then Mary gerbig from Bilo battle for better for the student services so I'm just looking to share this uh they help us with a variety of topics uh you know related to school law and uh years ago when I looked at old versions of

039this Memo from Ken they used to have local Council and but just because of the specialization and the really you know the knowledge base needed for a school law we've since contracted over the years um outside of the area which is very typical for school districts yes I'll need an expulsion here in a few weeks ago and there was a second Council on the poll does that build to us as well because it was like I want to know if that was part of it because they were just kind of listening again yes she was was she I believe well I thought she was a paralegal I thought she was too Katie I can speak to that a little bit she she um attorney Lowell is an attorney um she's a secondary person so what

040will happen is many times Mary will take the lead and actually running the hearing um attorney Lowell will take care of prepping all of the paperwork and documentation so they they support in tandem they're they're only billing For The Individual Services where they directly are supporting so attorney Lowell is is billing for the document prep or any of that pre-work and then attorney gerbig is is billing for her services in in the moment in that the Consultation Services if we speak and then in the moment supporting the exposure if that makes sense they're dividing out some of those responsibilities okay so this doesn't need emotional approval it's just uh do you know how long we've been with these these firms on reason we started working with since spring of 2020 or 21 22 school year

041and then Mary gerbig was with Davis and kielthao before historically we've been with her uh decades I would say so um thank you foreign just a couple um a couple remarks um one of the things that we've done in the past is had uh Liaisons from the board to different schools and so what I wanted to do is um ask if the the board the sitting board previously that had the schools I'm going to read them off do you still want that school or do you want to change so um Franklin was Matt Phipps you still want to do Franklin sure and then Madison Carey yeah unless Chris wants to do Madison since he's he's the daddy from Madison I I am two blocks away and the dogs and I go by every day are

042you okay with that yeah sure okay I can help him do snow give me something else though okay you can help them do snow um Matt Spalding Washington yeah is that okay fine by me Wilson uh you know I'd probably prefer something closer but I can keep that one if no one else wants to go over there okay um Carrie would you want to go to do Wilson sure okay who's the who's the principal there now yeah but some people need to well some have to do two do you want to do two okay so Carrie's gonna do Wilson okay okay um so Tony do you you want something closer um I prefer Elementary if there's one um open how about Jefferson sure you've been there a bunch of times Jefferson School um okay so

043uh Biff um Jackson's um is a school that Kathy had Lincoln was the school Colin had I would love to take Lincoln okay would they love to take you yes they know YouTube okay and then um let's see here and then we do have um does anyone want another one um would be either uh McKinley or Riverview if somebody wants a second School what is Jackson Jackson is oh you're right no I'm sorry we need one for Jackson um so that would be if anybody wants another one otherwise I will do I have McKinley but I can also do Riverview unless someone else wants another one great and yeah I'm sorry yeah McKinley's mine yeah okay so you have McKinley and Riverview and Monroe Monroe is going to be Matthew Spaulding oh okay and you

044know there's no requirement of you know you have to go so many times it's just a way for um to for each one of us to get connected come back report anything kind of be an advocate if there's something they need to connect with directors and yeah to make sure nobody's being left out yeah and um I know you know Carrie's gone to some you know Bingo yes a couple times um I wondered if that was a conflict of interest to take the prize [Laughter] okay it's under 25 yeah um in just a plug for the wasbe conference in January I know um you know Carrie usually goes um so anybody that wants to go is the hotels have been um have opened uh they go pretty fast so if that's something that you'd like

045to do make sure to let Lorraine know Associated um so make arrangements okay for that look at what you can do um I think you stole my thunder with the football team oh lots of uh I did get a chance to go to Monroe this morning and see the kickoff of SFA so um you know obviously this week is uh training for SFA next week um you know the teachers will be in classrooms working too so um you know try to reach out to your principals and just say hello and introduce yourself I just wish them a great great school year I've had that reminder our kickoff will be the following Tuesday right which all the board members are invited to right which we can actually kind of bump up to that our future meeting

046dates um the board meeting is uh Tuesday September 12th at six o'clock and then um what the date of the kickoff at Lincoln High School is um next next Tuesday next Tuesday 2 30 at 2 2 o'clock okay so if you remember last year um you know we were present at that it was in the morning last time but um so if you can make that that would be great what time is it 29 2 o'clock two o'clock 29 29. how long will it go for New York yeah oh you went there this Tuesday about an hour Stacy I thought maybe we would get a report on on Jamie um David McCall and and how we're gonna I mean as soon as I saw that I felt you know bad for her I did open

047heart surgery myself and you know it's pretty serious business but um gosh you know I I I I you know she was doing a whole lot of stuff for us and and in many ways was the kind of the the the the um you know the the the the the person who was getting success for all sort of working or ready to work in the schools and now I assume she's going to be off for about four months and I wondered what we were going to do to to to compensate for for her being gone yeah so Jim has met with uh the team I know Matt with um Heidi and Lee and Katie and do you want to talk a little bit yeah Justin we're regrouping you know the great thing yes is we

048do have a plan you know that plan is pretty strong um uh all the way around from what Mike was talking about in Staffing so we've been pretty close to that so you know when you have a plan you can work the plan and that's what we're doing right now and I think everybody is pulling in uh we're figuring out in terms of yeah there could be some some some bumps in the road but we're feeling pretty good in terms of having a plan and what's nice is when you put a plan in place and you can work in it and the other thing that was always strong about SFA it's more than just literacy there are a number of uh practices that we know that it's going to benefit benefit us because they'll be

049then consistent across the school districts so there's still there's great excitement out that and we're proceeding with that when Jamie has permission she'll work remotely you know until she comes back and we don't anticipate the the length of time that you mentioned I mean the stopper from working uh yesterday today and you know tomorrow is send me a budget email today I mean so so she's anxious to to get back we're trying to tell her you don't need to we got it covered uh so we're feeling really strong that we have a strong team and and I and I can't say that enough in terms of and I think Stacy mentioned that last time about the importance of the team right uh this team is really strong it has a lot of new members some

050with a lot of potential some with experience and you know carrying that on so we're feeling like we're in good hands um and better than we've ever been before in terms of what we set up for success I heard from uh one of our principals and just said uh just the network of of the principles all around feeling very connected sharing information and I you know again I think the the model is strong and that you know we have a cohesive um set of directors and then the SFA coordinators you know there to really you know pull that off um so yes it's a it's it's not a good situation but um I think that we have the elements in place to continue moving and I would highlight you know again what is the one

051of the significant components of estimated to distributed Leadership Model and so our intent always was to not have everything here at central office but build the teams I don't know but with consistency that we have that across okay so a lot of this is bringing back in and empowering our schools too with the supports and the resources they need to succeed so we're feeling again pretty good thank you for tomorrow because uh yeah tomorrow and we're hoping too um okay so we talked about future meeting dates um yes one thing for the future meeting dates uh one of the things that we are waiting for was what was going to be finalized regarding the state aid act you know and so Angela's been sharpening the pencil and working through that and kind of seeing where

052we're at so one of the things we will need to do is call a special meeting Angel is still finalizing some of this but we could call that if there was availability as early as next week uh you know so we have uh an October date you know when we have the budget we got to back up that uh but it you know it's about we're in a good place but we also have to match in terms of what our expenditure needs are now what does our Revenue uh understanding uh so that we can plan accordingly so we we still need to have some internal discussions on that you know in terms of bringing this to the board but uh we're getting into that ready State Angela did you want to make some comments about

053that and very briefly um that our equalized value came in at 14 prunes I've added in at zero percent so that means the you know a month of value that is spread across for uh the middle rate means that it's going to come in lower than we projected correct so there's a lot of discussion that needs to allow addition and strategizing against what we want to do looking ahead as well as now so that's what we'll focus on when we have that meeting and that's reminding me of uh the document that you gave us that had the options possibilities that we were looking at at that time and if you look at that document I'm sorry the highest was 10 on there but it went even higher and that's an estimate but last year the

054estimate usually comes in very close it's not like it's going to go down to five percent right okay can I ask where that estimate is coming from it's just different from what we got at the County Board so what what are you using for that so uh varied will always provide or from the Wisconsin Department of Revenue the equalized value what was yours Beth not 14. which would be great but well but you you are looking at the entire account this is the city which is just a major eval right a reval rebound like the girls itself you know the growth in Manitowoc County was a lot lower like I want to say around one something like that when I looked into that recently but the equalized value for schools I think is a different

055ball game compared to yeah it could be yeah just so um so you'll put you'll Laurie if when if we need that special meeting they'll put that out there yes do we think it'll happen before our next meeting we'll need to have that happen before I would like to yes because we really will need to approve approve a preliminary budget for the hearing and that has to be posted in the paper two weeks before the the budget hearing itself so two days we we thought about so 28th or between 28th and the sixth yes start time for meetings we uh I miss them on board meetings okay sure sure and and as I spoke to you about this before I only ask because normally these budget documents are somewhat huge that I I get it

056as soon as possible for time to win over thank you and always too when you've receive those budget documents because there's so much I'm happy to connect on a phone call for questions I mean I'd rather I want you to feel comfortable with them we'll do thanks thank you very much anything else on um future meeting dates okay all right so we are going to um hop into the Strategic plan review and work session um and this was sort of our second part that we didn't get to last time um and the first thing I wanted to go over um Chris if you want to open that um yes waiting to be queued well if this gets messed up it's me perfect yeah just say you've got it so um so I I you know

057there's a lot of times where we try to or one of the things that I wanted to do is sort of board um education strategy looking at things is how do we determine um the levels of of who who does what so what's what's the responsibility of the superintendent the staff the um and then also the board and so this was a little exercise that just helps look at each one of these uh and I don't want to you know spend too much time on each one of them but um there were answers uh correct answers to this just based on what typical school districts um do uh and so I just want to go through these and you're going to see the pattern here is that we're not all on the same page which

058is not surprising um but uh do we have this anywhere did you do you fill one out I did yeah okay I'm just asking I can't see that there's nothing here yes if you go to yeah but you want to see the graph always in here no the graph isn't but the questions are do you want the graph yeah hang on one second does anyone else want me to send that to you quickly I mean the answers to the question no just if you wanted to see the um the graph I would take it to Stacy I think you can um go in under that other link to the one that you took it from because I saw you on there today where you can see the graph yeah I mean how did you get

059in there when you I think at the end it asks you if you want to do the results give it your email address and then if you send this to you I could forward it I'm just going to see what you're probably looking up I'm just going to send it to everybody right now there's a code at the top of this yep that you can do too foreign last time because you can kind of see all the stuff moving up and down and it's kind of fun um so anyway so the first one there was looking at um establishing a citizen advisory committee to recommend goals for the district um and you can see there uh the majority um was d uh that the school board makes the final decision but may permit or require

060recommendations from the superintendent I thought the board was the citizens advisory committee to recommend goals for the district I mean you know I that's what we got elected for we're Citizens We're not not experts in education I mean our only qualification is that we're citizens who sort of know the community and the community thinks we have the possibility of exercising good judgment on their behalf so you would not agree with the number or the letter D is that what you're saying Carrie I'm sorry yeah so the the the consensus of of the survey um not here but um as far as an answer goes um is letter c which is the third one there sorry just like uh level C the one that the two people did okay that's a consensus from what the the

061answer there's answers to this so there's answers of yeah like what typical okay and this was this was provided in terms of the research on the National School Board Association where they've gathered information of of what has been promoted for for practice uh and uh and this is and again they've done this in many in Services just to demonstrate uh how challenging it can be to bring people on the same page about how do you get the work done right so the National School Board Association will end up this year so this has been this has been out there for a long time now and when I say National so I'm not sure what was Wisconsin or national but this is you know I first had this because going to one of their trainees okay

062that they provide and I think it's even possibly been done here in the past is there any way to find out where this information from the data that you're talking about I mean I'd like to look at it and see where it's from um sure uh resource here I can give you okay just email us here now sure um so one of the things that I I think when I think you know the key word being here is um establishing so you know the the board um makes a recommendation that they want there to be a school board I'm sorry a advisory committee and it's the superintendent that goes out and makes that happen um but so the letter c of must obtain prior approval so it's not like that he can just establish an

063advisory committee to something but actually implements uh the process um so Chris we go to the next one retain a consultant to help set up an educational technology program um you can see there that there was uh between the two um and this one was uh level A or B um would have been which none of us picked so we really felt like that needed board approval um and um so again a lot of this is to illustrate that we are just not on the same page when it comes to how we're divvying up or how we all see um these these roles between the board and the superintendent what was the consensus answer A or B so the the first two there that no one picked um the third one Chris we go to

064the next one um add a new course in Family Life Education at the high school level um and this would have been um so the the choices are the superintendent has complete authority to decide and act within the limits of law board policy propriety and common sense so um if you can think about the First Column is pretty much the board I'm sorry the superintendent um has the authority to decide the second one that the superintendent has complete authority to act but must inform the board about the decisions and actions and then the the third one is must obtain prior approval from the board before taking action and then the last one is the board makes the final decision but may permit or require a recommendation so that's kind of what we do isn't it

065we weigh in and unfold right so we're I mean again we're just looking at to see where where this all falls yeah right yeah all right so um if you skip to the next one Chris this is about interscholastic um the answer to three was b or c foreign so this would be a discontinuing interscholasque at baseball in all school districts so this would be something that um that's just eliminating something um this was D was the answer so the one most uh people got there would be that it was the school board now the superintendent may make a recommendation but the final decision would fly with this war um okay number five uh allow each school to select special courses and subjects not taught in all at all schools in the district um this

066one um was level B number six uh this was determined rules for student dress and this was a seven set of tenants achievement and subject requirements for graduation and this one was C or D so um you know again I'm not interested in um exactly what these say as to illustrate that we are um we're all coming from a different place and not unanimous really in any of these um so one of the things so we don't need to go through all of them unless everybody wants to know what the suggested answer is is that okay yeah sure okay let me get those to you if you want them um but one of the things that the reason why I wanted to take this time to have this discussion and do this activity is to

067really to look at uh you know how are we our governing model how are we um how are we interacting with our superintendent um you know what are the directives what are the parameters that we set up and and have this relationship with and how are we going to all get on the same page one of the things that I think uh was on the gotta get my other on our old agenda from last time but I believe it's on here as well is that one um is that we um actually come up with um our own um degrees of authority and how we you know looking at these things and who does that and that we come up with that so we can communicate um you know to the superintendent you know what things

068are um you know in our purview and what things are in his purview so that there is a clear distinction um uh between that uh as as these issues come up um so one of uh what I would like to propose is that the executive committee uh come together and put together a recommendation to the board of what that might look like uh under you know using some of these examples and being able to um so that we can all be on the same page of how we want Jim to respond to these some of these or anyone in in that matter that's going to be in this position so um is there any discussion about that no I mean we don't have any kind of constitutional document do we I mean I've been on

069a lot of boards and none of them ever do and I think that's part of the problem is that um nothing is nothing is nothing is spelled out uh there's an awful lot of kind of you know making it up as you go along and um it it you know it's hard to be consistent that way and I I just think that um boy it's it's I think it's I think it's a kind of a fundamental a fundamental necessity to do that to say who's got the authority to do what and what what happens if they don't do it or if they you know or if they uh you serve upon somebody else's somebody else's responsibilities um and and you know and I'm I'm I mean we ordered in a country that's you know so

070so into like kind of constitutionalizing everything so why why we don't we don't have that but I I do really think it's a necessity and I I would I would certainly think that the executive committee coming groups with some of these some of these these areas of of of authority and responsibility would be a good place to start yes I mean the governance models that that I've looked at um we're going to talk about you know kind of how we want to move forward with that a little bit is that um you know the the policies are one thing but you know we need to give sort of this set of guidelines um you know to the superintendent to you know hear the boundaries um you know so you're not micromanaging right you know everybody

071on your staff but you you need to stay Within These boundaries that the board you know has set for you um and so um you know I'd like to meet with the executive committee come up with those and bring them to you um for deliberation and adoption if if uh that's what it what it wants to be yeah my only statement is that democracy is dirty it's taking it it's tightly so I do understand we would like to have a system in which that's why I think if we follow policy that we have on books um it gives a good roadmap for the purview of the superintendent and their Authority and then it also gives a roadmap for their board so I I do like to use those documents as a reference um for for

072Authority it's been very effective for myself in the last year and a half um seeing whose responsibility Falls where um in a week if we did there we could do a dive into the policy of just understanding some of these questions that we were kind of disagreeing on it does kind of outline you know metal detectors is completely the purview of the superintendent that's on the book's policy it just maybe we need to be yeah so what that we need to be brushed up on that and we need to all kind of communicate at that if we could work at that to understanding what the policy is that the district and if the board because it's a fluid thing is changing the board has the authority to change the policy as it's going on so

073that's where you know we don't want to put people in in silos again but at the same time you'd like to have some some so I guess that's the touch and goal problem of being a superintendent is that you have to communicate you know all different opinions and kind of streamline them together and understand that hey some people don't really like this however this isn't my purview and I'll explain why I make this recommendation um and this is you know so being an effective Communicator to to tell uh his opinion and then or her opinion about why they're doing what they're doing even if the board doesn't really like it that's kind of what has to be done and it's a difficult conversation sometimes and that's why obviously the internal rates high-end superintendents but I

074mean it's not perfect but that's the kind of how it's been going on and it does work it's just a hard job to facilitate all the relationships um you know just like Carrie I don't I didn't hear anything about property sale I mean either so like I don't understand you know I understand there's rumors but like the superintendent's job is to communicate to all board members what's going on and he's been doing that emergencies or other things and that's it's not a clean process but it's it's the job of the superintendent but I think our policy does dictate a lot of the authority and I think if we brushed up on our policy more then we could have a clearer road map but sometimes issues come out while we're talking and then we have to

075dive into the policy to see you know where the authority lies now that doesn't mean that we don't have a system it's just that we didn't know the system at the time huh I second what Matthew said I one of the question or one of the options on there was uh the superintendent has authority to act but he must inform the board it was one that I just never used and the reason being he's been so good at communicating everything that he's done so far in uh reading uh you know the poe updates things like that anytime I put an A on there it was with the full intent knowing that anything he did do regarding that he was going to be letting us know anyway um so I'm not sure if where if there

076is any confusion with all this if it's if it's amongst us on the board or anything like that I we could definitely maybe do something to get on the same page but I think he's been doing a heck of a job keeping us informed in my opinion uh with anything that's been doing good anybody else first before yeah I must be in a different Universe than some of you okay because first of all I don't I don't care if it would be James file or John kruba or Vern Childs or Mark Swanson or I start making decisions on authority of that position as a board we have to figure out where we are I I've been on here since April whenever and I'm going to be very honest of of all my service city council

077County Board it is hard to get information we do we we spent 45 minutes at our last meeting talking about an easy subject like raising money for projects at the high school have gone through a committee and presented to this board you could ask questions from that committee boom it's done we're going to have curriculum issues coming up we have buildings and grounds things that are going to need to be repaired we can't as a committee of the whole make those decisions without long drawn out meetings where a committee could make those decisions bring the recommendations everybody can still ask their questions if they need to but the information is there for everybody we don't all have the information we need we can't decide what James role is until we figure out what we're doing

078so we're putting the cart before the horse as they say to say let's get the executive committee together and that bothers me because who's the executive committee we're all if for all honest there are two factions on the board and the executive committee consists of one faction so those rules are going to come out and everybody's going to look at it and say oh okay we'll just do what they say or it's four to three like it's been a lot so we have to decide as a board how we're going to organize what we're going to do how we're going to get all the information to you and you and you and you and you and him and me so we can make Intelligent Decisions but right now I felt since April we're just treading

079water something comes up how do we make an agenda who knows call you and it gets on the agenda the research I've done on what we're talking about tonight is it comes down to putting more power and less representation to all the members of the port okay look up the names of the people that we have and that's what it'll come down to the system of a of a committee of the whole run government it takes away the individual knowledge of every board member because you don't have to know everything you can't know everything you can't know every specific thing that we're supposed to know to make a good decision you get that in a committee structure because the expert if you're on a Personnel committee Michael the expert sit down with you and explains

080everything if you're on on the buildings committee Mike Schwarz will do that if you're on you know if whatever committee you're on the expert from the district helps you and gets you the information you make a decision you come to the board explain that and we all vote on it yeah that's that's how 50 States run their government is it perfect no but that's the way we've done things in this country and it seems to work can you imagine if a large government organization would just do everything by Committee of the hole I didn't I didn't think that was on I didn't think that was what I'm saying Terry Kerry is I didn't think that decide we can't decide on an executive committee coming in telling us what they think well we don't know we

081we have no information we haven't got information since I I agree with that bro I agree with that and I I agree with that I think that what we're talking about is we're talking about uh duties and responsibilities and and and and and and that uh in a in a fairly General way at this point and I I would say that to start with in in in in a very clear way you know the board has all the power the board is the person the superintendent is a creature of the board and if we want him to do nothing we can decide to do that if we want to do specific stuff and hold them responsible for that we can do that that's the only thing that's statutorily we know about the nature of the

082governance here and it's like we've got we've got all we've got all the Thunderbolts the board does so I think that we need to decide as a board you know how we want to We're not gonna we're not going to do the administration that's for sure I mean the the the superintendent is the servant of the board it and and we want we want them to we need to decide in general ways in general ways where the categories are where you know where a certain certain amount of a certain amount of responsibility is given to this superintendent and that that becomes predictable Chris did you want to say anything for you yes thank you um I I would say that in the policy manual the bylaws and the policies pretty clearly describe the wrongs and

083I believe State statue does too and you certainly can't write anything that goes counter the state statute and I I guess I'm just I don't understand where them ambiguities are that aren't inherent I I assure you this is not a goal to muddy the water I'm just going to choose one example the metal detectors okay the metal detectors the superintendent can't just decide to do that Maybe maybe and here's why because if it's not in your budget they can't decide to do that you should have planned for and budgeted for it the budget document is an overarching understanding of where you're going for the next year with money if you suddenly spend money on something that's not in there and everybody's up in arms you can turn around and go wait a minute you never

084had the authority to do that if everybody goes oh thank goodness you did that the board should go good job superintendent thanks for having our back on that one so I'm not sure what ambiguity exists that doesn't inherently exist in some of these things you know I I I'm okay with what we have right now I I feel in my talking with superintendent I have a good understanding of what he's doing what he sees his areas are you know so but if it helps other people better to find those I'm happy to look at those and have a conversation about them but you know right now we're talking about talking about something until I have that thing yeah yeah almost Christmas yep Tony I guess for my observations being on the board for now my

085second year you know we had all those committees last year and I I felt that we we had similar issues and frankly our district had those committees for years and years and years you know before last year and you know I think it was evident that you know having more meetings or having more committees doesn't necessarily translate into success I think a big part of it is putting the right leadership team in place which I feel that we've done and I think there's a fine line between accountability which we're working towards with the goals in micromanagement which I don't think anyone asked that right so I think we just got to talk through what's the best structure to do that and in my opinion I'm a big fan of fewer meetings I think sometimes we

086have too many meetings and you know your next thing you know your meetings all day and you're like when I get done right so I'd like to avoid that too but you know I do think I hear what you're saying and I think we need to find a way to increase that transparency to the public and again I think that dashboard that we're working on with the SFA it's going to really help push that forward because once the public sees that and really anything they're not seeing let's just talk about it and get that out there I think if we can do that and see progress that's what we're all working towards I know we're just talking but like Carrie exactly what you just said I completely agree 100 about the authority of the board

087and the distribution and it's elected by the elected officials so like we're on the same page 100 so I don't know what the division we're talking about Chris I'm completely in agreements with what you just said as well see how the checks and balances are built into democracy of the governance of the budget so that the superintendents just go off the handle and say what's in my purview I'm gonna go spend money on that well if he puts it in the budget for next year yeah let's see how you had to check and balance of between the the budget and his you might have the authority but it might not be the right decision at the moment and then the board can check them and say well you did something wrong or why did we

088do that that wasn't so you see that's governed it's at its finest and yes the medians are going to take a long time we kind of signed into that because we knew that when the meetings are taking long is because we're all respecting each other and listening to each other's opinions and yes if we don't agree philosophically about everything we're going to have long discussions about it but that's okay because that's democracy so like I understand it's just it's a it's a messy process process and we're giving it if we just if I call the question all the time then obviously that wouldn't be democracy that would just think hey we're going to push things through that's not what's happening right now we've all had our time Stacy's very very respectful of everybody's opinion and

089we frankly she lets us around a little bit a little bit too much either but especially respect so what I'm saying is it just it takes time and unfortunately we weren't getting the results on the committee level because then you'd say oh uh Terry you know we were on the same thing and then if we weren't on the same thing well Kerry I talked to him before the meeting and he'd be like well this is how we should do it and I wasn't in the meeting so I didn't notice then I just took a absentee or listening to his opinion I'm not saying everybody does that that's your due diligence however if you're not a professional in that meeting that's why I like what Mike talks about things frankly the budget is what we're doing

090with the money coming up that's very important I wouldn't have it any other way to have that meeting that's coming up as a committee of whole because that's huge decision making for the district in the future here and then why would I want to put that through a financing I want to say something quick so I mean the the reason this came about I mean if I would agree with you that really if I thought that the old committee system worked I'd be happy to keep doing it the problem is it wasn't we and part of that is because it's not board driven we we have not been driving it what what happened my first um being on the board is I was very confused about why everything was being brought from Administration with very

091little um board driving or interaction about it for instance when you look at the when you look at our if curriculum committee was effective then why have we not reviewed a curriculum in 25 years why isn't there a process to do that and why isn't there an overall when we were looking at different curriculums and and rotating them we have focused on math and reading why haven't we focused on everything else and and again I look at it from a a large standpoint is the Board needs to say you know this is what is important for academic achievement that that and now that needs to be built into the budget so I would I would also say that there have a lot been a lot of initiatives things that have been purchased that again were

092brought by Administration but didn't really have an overarching um board influence it like I don't see this Vision that the board has for the district utilizing that that we have um and bringing that and saying look this is what we this is what we expect this is what we want and these are the checks and balances so maybe maybe we're not using the Committees effectively maybe we have the wrong committees you know maybe we have the wrong categories exactly which is yeah if they weren't working that's not the committee system that's the committee that's the people on the committee or the people on the committee taking all their direction from Administration correct that's a committee problem that's not the idea of how committees are supposed to work that's a call for us but right now

093the direction what's the direction you know you have a lot of things we have a lot of things that District needs I keep hearing that that this wasn't done and this wasn't done we got to change great let's change what's the direction and if you read about this system that you're talking about it's very much top heavy telling you what to do and that's not what a board is of elected people are supposed to get information sit down make a decision if your committees were bad get rid of those people on those committees and change them or can't do that didn't we just kind of do don't we don't we doesn't the board stuff that would be a problem I didn't have a cone of accountability on the executive side of it and the accountability

094is on the elected officials so you are the person now who can set up the Committees set them up correctly that's what she's trying to do right now we're talking about this by getting rid of the Committees it's a governance model she's trying to talk about nature I wanted I want us to be I want us to be critical of a system that hasn't worked for us I want us to be critical in looking at um uh different committees where there is uh overlap you know for instance again finding finances and everything and so what I found very ineffective was is that we would have um we would be talking about a curriculum or something else and everyone was terrible the property and we never had the finance piece there to you know I think

095it's we got a lot of information but there was no context to the information and I think that what I'm saying is is that um overall I think our Board needs to decide what that's going to look like and what those if we don't even have we don't even have a description of what the Committees are what what they're supposed to be doing right um right there's no directive so um what I'm asking this board is to come together to create what it is that we want um and and I don't I'm I'm you see top heavy I see studying the guidelines so they're there and letting out that's what we do with the goals right I mean we established some goals last week we have a strategic plan now we have to let the

096administrative team do their jobs and hold them accountable to accomplishing those goals and I'm not sure more meetings are gonna at least with us and there are gonna you know this is a volunteer role this isn't like us you know doing the work this is us guiding you know the district and letting the professionals do their work oh okay sorry go ahead I was just going to add a little bit too I know that a lot of discussion came up from the public comment that we received of Finance issues with things and pay and all that other stuff and it was very valid and I I sort of feel the same way too well maybe maybe we're missing something but it was Biff himself that made the comment during that meeting that he's part of

097a finance committee and I don't know if it's city or county or whatever it was and we would have never heard those issues during a committee meeting that was something that we wouldn't have hit anyway so it was but then this time we're talking and it's he's more in favor of the committee side I kind of feel both ways on uh when it comes to the Committees I can I can see how but I can also see our Direction and uh the the part that I guess confuses me is where your confusion as to where we're headed because we've we spent the last year and a half that I've been on this board um establishing that direction establishing that Direction with the you know our strategic plans and everything else we we have a goals

098we have our goals in mind and set forth ahead of us that should be the last thing we should be confused about so maybe we can get together and discuss more about that but I guess yeah but yeah there is a division of labor though that has to be established and it has to be clear and Chris thinks it is I don't I don't I don't I I think if everything was working right I think you'd you'd be correct but I don't think I don't think you're correct in terms of boots on the ground here but the the deal is is that um you know to some degree I I I I agree with some of this some of the some of the ideas in the book I didn't agree with the concept though I

099didn't agree with the concept because it seems to me that the board is essentially a legislative body we're a legislative body we don't we don't decide you know how many kids are going to be in each class we don't decide you know what time of day the course is going to be offered I mean that's the responsibility of the head of the administration however though we have I see us um often getting into the Weeds about those sorts of things when we have um you know given uh we we have let me I'll give you an example we've asked one of our goals is we want to increase academic achievements right and so we've asked our administrative team to pull that off and with that has come um you know decisions about things that then

100we come back and micromanage and so I don't know how much micromatics I mean I think we've done we we've called the votes on fairly big questions like are we going to do successful or not right I think it's been there's been discussion sure but discussion isn't right than that I mean we have a right to say well what about this or what about the you know what about the elective courses etc etc you know there are concerns they're not micromanaging so I do think so I do think that and I don't agree that you know with the models that are saying the board should be governing we're not governing we're we're essentially we're we're essentially the elected by by the by the community because the community thinks we can exercise good judgment on what

101is needed and what um what and what's best for the schools in this community I mean that we reflect the values of the community and in some cases we have to disagree with the administration because you know our job is the big picture and the policies that go into making the big picture so that uh and I think that certainly my experience on the board is that yeah we did an awful lot of listening to the administration and saying oh okay well yeah you see that as the big picture we'll vote for it or we won't vote for it but but I think that we have begun to take the initiative of saying all right we're gonna we're gonna we're gonna set the agenda for this school system uh We're not gonna just take the

102Jim files and Jim files uh uh preferences on this I mean if we want to mess with this uh where the you know where where the people that have been sent here to like represent the community and if they don't if they don't think we represent them well you know what happens so I don't I I don't I don't think I don't think you know I don't think that any of the stuff we've read including the stuff here really kind of really kind of Hamels the concept of you know what we wanted what we what we what we are or what we think we should be I think we should be a legislative a legislative body that sets the goals and currently we've set goals that that that that that that acts in ways that

103puts general interest over special interest that is that the the the the superintendent's point of view or or the teachers union point of view or you know or the or the or the or the parents point of view you know I mean they they can talk all they want I mean it's a free country but we're the people that have the responsibility for saying I think this is this in our judgment ought to be the values that this this system reflects the sort of goals that the system should have and and how how we assess that when we delegate off responsibilities to the administration and the teachers so I I mean I I I mean and I do think that we do need committees I don't know if the old committee delegation of of stuff

104is is particularly appropriate but I did see you know in in in in one of the documents here I you know you're right there's an awful lot of overlap I mean Finance deals with everything I mean it has implications for everything so I do think that we maybe need to be creative on creating different kinds of committees because I really depend upon somebody who's really looked into it at a greater depth than me to make an intelligent recommendation don't we have that here though I mean we have all the experts here the director and the committee the whole I mean there's too many of the Halls it's just a goat Rodeo I mean it's just you know I just want to know what don't we have I mean I'm a favorite but I really like

105what you're saying I just what don't we have now as a committee as a whole that we would have within those individual committees because the way Chris and maybe might be able to do that but Chris explained it earlier if all those duties I mean it's it's definitely set pretty much in stone by Statute and everything else so what are we going to be doing different we're going to we're going to do depth with committees that we can't do as a body isn't that what we're doing right now is these I don't think that's true I mean I don't you know I I mean I I know that I was on committees that you know actually did research even as building and grounds you chaired building and grounds when I was my first time yeah

106right that was a committee that was pretty dishwashed along the ways so you know you're a chair just saying no I'm just kidding yeah how many times did we have double like joint finance and building Community this is why we didn't why we didn't Stephen the little things one is the big thing one is the big thing is the plan if we had a Str if we had a plan to take care of the buildings and grounds on over a period of a five-year schedule the goal that's the that's the goal okay and then we could have a committee that dealt with that and finance and said okay here's what we wanted here's what we wanted here's what we want to do and here's here's maybe how we want to do it and maybe we

107should talk to our cease of 10 people that we've hired and and and and get their advice and then come to the then come to the commit then come to the board meeting and say look we've looked into this we may maybe we're not Geniuses on it and we're certainly not experts but here's our recommendation and then we discuss it so that that's the specific that fits into the big picture of the gems so so you've got to have thunder and lightning you can't just have you know one or the other okay so one one of the other things I mean I guess another another question I want to throw into the next after listening to everybody is do you think that um with the things that we have set up now do you think

108it would be a smart idea if we um got a sisa or waspy or somebody to come in and to facilitate our group and find out how we want to move forward and Design This model that works best for us in our district might be good but we have to know what questions we want to ask before we get any of those people in here I'm just I'm just throwing it out there because the other thing is you know and if this is like the second time you said this about this these factions right yeah these chairs because we are doing the work of trying to have the best educational program for our kids now we're not always going to agree how to execute that or what the solution is or whatever but but I

109do not see anybody here that wants to be divided and that um and and so what I'm trying to figure out is now that we have a strategic plan we have um you know this everyone is doing work except the board and the board is and I'm not saying we're not doing work but um you know somebody said to me the other day uh you know how can how can we expect our um our staff and our teachers and everybody to uh come together and and be one when our own board can't even do it I'll answer that and I'll tell you this that the meeting we we spent when we had all these resignations and people leaving and you know twice as many as we've had before and we get these you know what's

110happening all over blah blah blah blah and it's like we took all of that survey that people filled out and numerous people after that board meeting said well yeah you took it that all serious because the board just shut shut everything up 30 approval and we just made excuses for it em and no and it's like yeah there's reasons out there but then let's sit down and try to fix those reasons that people are leaving the person I talked to last week who's leaving would have loved to stay here but he's gone because of the environment that we're in we have to change that you're right but that means when you have a closed session and I want Hope from that closed session on the extension of the contract and I was like wow we

111all sat down and we came up with these great ideas and blah blah blah blah and the next day it's all gone the next day as I got we're just gonna do it anyway and it was like wait the board worked together it came up with ideas they came up with goals and it was just all thrown out boom we're doing this that's why I think that way because it just changed the work that we had done together as six people because Chris was gone thrown out and changed you ever change your mind on something after I've changed my mind a lot of things we work together as a board came up with ideas and it was gone but it was gone but then why are the why are the same goals that we picked

112in that session we voted on to have those as Focus there were more goals there were more things that we talked about and it was just gone so you want to work together let's work together but then let's stick to discussions and come up with things that we agree on rather than just tossed out okay it was tossed out I don't know what else was in there besides the ones that became the goals but so I'd like to talk about that at some point um you know I just want to bring back you know in terms of there's a lot of criticisms including maybe board should be disbanded because the main goal of student achievement isn't met there's a lot of feelings through the issues and we're one of them and seventy percent of our

113kids aren't reading at grade level for us to dismiss that almost as or you know I I've heard said I've heard this say I dismissed so many percent I dismiss the fact we needed a specific program I never dismissed the low reading scores but also when you look at those scores let's compare them the whole country is going through this every district is trying to get scores on so don't accuse me of saying wait don't accuse me of saying 70 and I agreed with that that it's okay everybody the other thing that's going on around the whole country is that there's a teacher shortage and and teachers are leaving that's another thing that's not just Manitowoc the other thing I wanted to say about the about the surveys is when I look at like the

114third pillar on the strategic plan it specifically talks about retention of teachers it it I don't know where I mean I can see where it sounds like we pooh-pooh a 30 percent but it it we I mean does anyone here at this table think that we don't need to do a better job when it comes to retaining and keeping our staff can someone raise their hand if they think we've done a good job with that so I don't think we took it lightly what we've done is put it into a strategic plan on how to make it better what what are we going to do what are going to be those things that we're going to focus on to make it better and I think there's been things um that we have already implemented for

115instance one of the things that has come out time and time again in the surveys is the teacher Effectiveness model it's horrible it takes too much time it doesn't do anything for our teachers and so we have tried to figure out how can we get that off their plate to another thing that's been on their plate I I the differentiated learning I have to differentiate learning for five different levels in my classroom and we've come up with a whole school reform that can help with that so so I feel like I I unders I'm not sure what else I shouldn't say that there's a lot else that we can be doing um but I don't throw any of those surveys out I think all that stuff is Meaningful and I think everyone does why here's

116the other thing about surveys do you want to know how many times we've given a survey on but I figured what did somebody say the other day about asking students if they feel safe we've never asked them and if they needed safe space spaces do you know how many times we survey our students we survey them every year and you want to know on the very first year that I was there do you want to know what the survey said I don't feel safe and I bet you we haven't even seen the ones this year so the worst thing you can do with a survey is not act on it and and whether or not you know this group came together and did a Maya culpa um I I believe that the direction of this

117board is that um we know we have these big things and that we are working on on them um with some of the initiatives that we've put forward already um but yeah I mean I so student Behavior student behavior is another one of the reasons you know um that teachers were a lot of them that I spoke with that were leaving and you worked very hard on that absolutely and we still have not been able to implement that with ability a lot of it has a lot of it has come through and I think made some changes we have made some positive strides when it comes to behavior and discipline and things like that that's also helped now I also can't I talked to Mike uh today I can't or maybe Jim I can't believe

118how um almost every month I'm seeing teachers coming back that left last year left the year before and now they're coming back and it's a good thing we are making positive strides so I mean I guess I want to go back to um what what it what is it going to take in order for all of us to get on the same page and work together I'm not I'm not want to push any of these governance models yeah we can't keep doing what we were doing because it wasn't working I mean don't you think a different a variety of opinions is is sometimes gosh absolutely so I don't I'm not looking for like you know a loyal fields sort of approach um I just think everybody should speak their mind and you know it'll all

119sort of sift out and you know what decisions will be made it's just that we tend to be making it factually anyway you know in factions uh yeah but um you know I I I think of myself as a team player and I don't I you know I all the time you know and I think that's and I think that's I think that's constructive in in ways um so you know but I'm also a pretty affirmative person in a lot of other ways but uh but you know the thing is is that I don't think that this oh gee let's let's lock step okay let's lockstep I think the diversity here is a is a real asset yep I'm not suggesting lockstep I'm but what I am suggesting is that we come up with a

120a model that we think is really going to drive uh the vision of of of this board well yeah maybe maybe you know I mean my my analogy of the of the big picture in the little pictures you know the little pictures being the Committees maybe we should do committees that have it can be on a curriculum and Student Success or uh you know student culture Workforce engagement committee um you know what I mean that the the the goals that we have and the areas that we're concerned about the most it's like you know I could give a rip about you know the the urinals and Wilson you know and that's sort of what we talked about in in the building and grounds committee I would like to see like you know wow you know

121the repair is done so the ceilings aren't falling in at Lincoln I would like to have an assessment that you know the the the the the one corner of of Washington Junior High which is sinking into the ground you know needs to be taken care of sooner rather than later and and and all that sort of stuff and and then hold the people who are supposed to do that stuff accountable and I'm not talking about governance by shame but I'm talking about governments by planning and follow through on responsibility so I don't think that I don't think that I don't think I know Tony doesn't that doesn't want to have any more meetings but I think Tony wants to have a good school system and I think that what we have to do is we

122have to be we have to be pretty specific about some things and I think that committees can handle that pretty well if if the you know if the if the right people are and I I think if we're all in if we're all involved in not just the planning I think we've all pretty much been unanimous on the goals right so we are all on the same page and I think that we could be all we could we could all listen to the the Committees who are working in good faith and if they're not we can you know then I'll about it uh so I I I do think that we're not so far from a a workable legislative Machinery model that really can deliver the goods the goods for the people especially the goods

123for the kids um I mean the reason the reason why and you know the committee of the whole is not wasn't supposed to be forever unless it was something that the board wanted to do um but the committee of the whole the reason why I like it's the same information at the same time to be able to um you know the same update whatever it may be um and that if we had to form um you know there's no reason why if there was something more in depth that we couldn't at that point make an ad hoc committee or um you know something you know but I just feel like it everyone gets to weigh in and a lot of the research is sent to Administration to do um rather than us which is why

124I I like that model um you know another thing I was reading up about um you know Committees of the whole and um you know you really have to have another policy if you're just going to do Committees of a whole you know or is it just another board meeting that you're gonna do you know so that's the other thing is you know the idea that that I was floating uh with the committee as a whole is that it would be part of our second meeting of the month that we would cover anything that had to be at a committee level that would be at that second meeting that tends to be light anyway um and that if we do that uh and we do it as part of a meeting and we don't call

125it like a separate Committee of the whole you know then we can act on those items if we choose to if we make it a committee of the whole it would be something that would be just that we would deliberate on it but it would still have to go to the full board at the next because even though we're all together doesn't mean it's a board meeting seems to redundant doesn't it yeah well sure um you know which is why uh you know the idea is to put it into um you know having kind of like what we did tonight but we have yeah and we can break it into what are those committee items that need to come forward um or that somebody has to come forward uh to be able to discuss at

126that time um so that's my intention with it but if you guys don't feel like that's going to be an effective way to do that then um then I Then I then I guess one of my questions is do we want to you know is there is there such a lack of trust amongst us that we need to say for first third party um to come in and facilitate something to help us through uh this process I think I think the second it could make should come up with enough also of committees and uh how that that process the out what the expectations about how that process should work I think that would be a really good that would be a real good thing I think I like to I'd like to well the fact

127that when we had our committee set up before they were very siled and that was one of the things that wasn't working for us right so taking those into consideration whether it's just two extra committees committee whatever it may be maybe we could think of something that would Encompass those that that always seem to come together like like a building and grown in a finance type thing always seems to kind of come together how do you how do you put those in different categories that's something that we could we could somehow come up together with those difference not I don't want to see silos because I don't want to give them that specific yeah we end up because we want to be able to to be a little bit go ahead it's not a silo

128if every member is welcome at every if you want to go to a meeting that buildings and grounds has because you have an interest in something they're talking about as though you can speak as a board member you can be part of that we did that before right yeah and and and this idea that you know if there's a curriculum committee every board member could get the information being sent to that curriculum committee so we're all knowledgeable of it but it's that committee that can talk it out rough it out and most committees are going to probably come for three members or four they're going to come with three or four to nothing votes it's brought to the board the board votes on it there's discussion and everybody has input and it gets it it

129gets you the information sooner to talk about it so if you have questions you can go to the experts at the app but it also if you have questions you can say hey the chairman of that committee or whoever you talked about this I wasn't able to get there and usually there's minutes it's all there is there something special we just had a courthouse Dome committee right because that's something that they didn't want to throw to the public works because it's too big a project it's too foremost committees sometimes you have a committee of the whole to discuss a very very special issue you know if if they need to rebuild the tower at Lincoln that would be bigger than the building committee that would be a committee as a whole so is this a

130constant moving type thing to where yeah before we had Finance building a ground curriculum whatever you're talking more of a more more of a fluid uh chaining type thing you know there are there are your structured committees that you would you know if if you're picking out a new history book it would go to the curriculum I'm assuming there's already a group looking at that they come to the committee and say this is what we found this is what we like committee would vote on it bring it to the whole board and if people have questions they can ask but most of the groundwork is done so you don't spend 45 minutes at a board meeting just you know listening and people asking questions they couldn't ask if they're committing me it just it cuts

131down this meeting and it gives people who have an interesting curriculum or Finance or buildings or whatever other committees you come up with it gives them the chance to go sit and discuss something they're really interested Courtney's going to know more about business than Iowa so you know so so he would be an expert of this board for that type committee um we all have strengths in different areas and the Committees would direct information to that committee that we could hash out and bring back to everybody else I can't be an expert on everything you can't be an expert on everything we just can't education is too big there's too much here but people who want to dive in and get to know it in that committee can do that and then bring it back

132and explain it to us and there's still room to to do ad hoc committees if you need them or Committee of the whole if it's a example the courthouse don't we're having a committee of the home meeting to discuss what we came up with because it's a huge issue um that's all there and what it does is it spreads out in my head the Democracy of everybody is part of what's going on rather than lessening that something that was our intent in the beginning is to go into the committee as a whole is that everybody is a part of right yeah so I mean yeah there's pros and cons I mean I'm not crazy about additional meetings but you know again just going back to the way we're doing it last year and years before

133it doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be any better I mean either way you're going to have to spend time in a meeting and you know I thought the other than Edie model I thought had some Merit you know I just don't know if we ever uh fully completed our due diligence on it but you know I'm all about increasing performance and if there's a way to be more efficient in these meetings I feel sometimes you know there there were pros of the committee meetings right sometimes you really got to dig in deep on on things that were really important but I also felt a lot of times you know we were talking about stuff that may not have been that you know why is it being brought to the board right we're being asked

134to approve stuff that's already in the budget and it's there like so oh yeah I mean so again it's just that fine line of uh being efficient you know but still holding the team accountable and the district leaders accountable to advancing our goals and to that concern before committee meetings usually a report would come from whoever the director is saying this this happened like like Michael has reports for personality brings to us that would go to the committee meeting look over it it would all be explained you know so it's not like and even budgets my finance meetings two weeks before the meeting I get a budget of everything the county has spent money on and anybody who has any question on anything can bring that up at the committee right and the director explains

135it and you know after a few months you realize oh yeah that's the you know that's the two thousand dollars right we pay for blah blah blah so you get all that information you're able to look at it there are months that we don't have meetings since we don't have to there's nothing to discuss so it's just it's a way to get important things discussed and hash out before you bring it to a report doesn't you don't have to meet and that the German would call the meeting if he needs it or if she needs it but um it just then the agenda is set by the four on what needs to be talked about and that's that's that because that's what never happened yeah and that's what should happen that's what should happen Okay

136so um to Pivot here how how would um how would everybody feel if uh I took some time to maybe make a presentation about how we might do these committees a traditional model the options different options the the Ed one that and and Edie you were just kind of giving the descriptions you know so that they would be different than what we traditionally did um and if we deliberate on those and we pick which one we want to do how would you guys feel about that with that if let's look at it would you feel like you didn't have enough information well I think when you present something then a big questions and then I will ask that information okay anybody else I like that idea right well I had a strong negative one on

137the Ed thing I thought I thought it was educational fluff in in a lot of ways I wasn't thinking Matt Carey was thinking more on the district the the Committees that you were reading off there yeah the ones that you liked the kind of matches Edie Edie had uh different names and um sort of the what I want to call it the directive of the committee right so I thought he was okay on I thought he was good on like the board should be the board should be planning the boards would be looking at the overview the board should be like you know not just and and Tony's right I mean this is just a lot of you know being counting on on the the old committee structure that you know we didn't even we

138weren't even familiar with what the beans were for in some cases so uh that's true so the so there was that there was a lot of wasted time I think in in that regard but I I think shooting for something that's a kind of a compromise so I I wouldn't want to just say oh well we have three models you have to pick one no I think that no I see it being three models and then say well could we combine those creatively it's better to better serve the the school system yeah I would think of these shoes just gonna come up with some different options if we liked something to hear and something yeah you don't use the junk wherever we go right do we think um do we think our our first meeting

139of the month will be so packed that we wouldn't be able to have a good discussion or whatever we need a special needs another special we need a special meeting no no I'm I'm oh you said maybe we need one yeah maybe well I mean think about this to that either but okay yeah there's a possibility so maybe it's something we can run in tandem with that yeah right okay all right so now yeah you will have a deadline to getting that together right okay okay well I appreciate the discussion um there was only one other thing um uh Jim wanted to make a recommendation about uh on everyone now um wanted to make a recommendation about getting some Community engagement together so a community engagement uh group um to discuss um the controversial issues

140you want to talk a little bit about yeah you know one of the things that my concern is are we going to wait until I mean you can pick out all the headlines that you read I'm going to wait for our name is in that headline right or do we put some of these things up and open up publicly one of the issues that came as parent came to me and expressed concern about what their kids potentially could access through the public library uh and you know my first thing was just starting to look you know do we have our firewalls up and you know whatever happened and stuff like this but um I I prefer to do if there's some way that we can bring that discussion you know where we stand on this

141no parents have the rights I mean there was we had a big debate about that you know last time when we came and I was just following up on policy in terms of trying to determine where this board stood uh you know so I'm I'm thinking again in terms of is that something that where we could be more proactive I'm just like sex education was when that first came around a lot of controversy and they said you should have a community of citizens now they engage that uh or do we wait till we become a headline uh we read the you know things that are happening in Green Bay we've you know talked about these other school districts it's you know it's just you know it's almost like it's not when I mean it's not

142if it's going to happen it's when and I'm just is there a way to be more proactive about this so that it isn't divisive right but we say what belongs in in our schools you know I I have concerns because we have some groups out there that are promoting things I don't agree with I don't because I don't know you know there's never been identified a problem the board hasn't identified that there's a problem with diversity inclusion and equity but people are promoting this and and so I'm thinking okay what am I trying to fix because I've not seen the problem it's not been brought to my attention you've not brought it to my attention and yet this is out there and a so it sounds like a committee yeah okay I mean I've got

143questions in terms of can people you know what's in our our own libraries well what am I going to do sit down and Google every everything that you know to find out if there's inappropriate material or do we get some people and you know just like a couple parents that with their you know using their their kids laptops to see what they could you know is it safe you know I I'm just I'm just opening up the concept there's a is there a way that we can be proactive on this stuff the gym so much of this stuff is generated by by politics by the by the you know I mean we went through we went through a year of people getting up meaning after meeting after meeting talking about you know critical race Theory

144it wasn't an issue when the man who walks this stuff but it kept coming up it just kept coming up that's not true you know I've been able to find out where some of our staff are even reporting out publicly you know in terms of advancing that so I I would disagree with that I would also have to add uh we were talking about the access to on-school laptops I am father my daughter uses the school Chromebook and you can access bad things on there kids can it's not blocked out and they're able to click a preview it would be an issue they're able to click a preview button on it but they just don't want to be my daughter can can search for those things click a preview button on it and read and

145see explicit pictures straight up pornography on certain issues yeah and yeah I'm concerned with that myself I was kind of glad to hear that it wasn't just me uh all right but I just want to avoid being you know falling for the beta though there's definitely all right wing in the Republican party no there's Merit Behind these claims I guess in that case but you know right when she has access is that through this the district Wi-Fi or is that through a different Wi-Fi Wi-Fi yeah I mean why would that change as opposed to like where she's at specifically well as somebody who worked you know with these and with kids and with phones right um I don't know how I don't know how you're going to filter and stop all of it we would

146our guys would shut down a site on Tuesday on Wednesday there would be another site the same site would be up with two different letters at the end and they'd be able to access it I mean it it really comes down and I know you're a huge advocate of this it's parent responsibility check on the history check on this because if we're going to ask kids to work on these I don't think we're going to stop everything no I agree there's no way because the reality is I can go hey all right they blocked all this stuff out of my out of my computer so I'm gonna go to the cell phone sitting right next to me or in my pocket and and go on that cell link and they're going to be able to

147access stuff I've heard locking so it heard people say that many times too and I'm like yeah no you can't because I got control of that cell phone so okay you do you don't have control of that Chromebook that the school issues to her when my daughter even wants to download an app I get a little notification that says Layla wants to do this except or decline yeah and I can look and see exactly what she can do on and all that other stuff we're not declining on that right you're talking about your phone baby now you're talking about the phone I'm talking about the Chromebooks that we issued every student right maybe the district maybe we should do some education with parents as a district saying hey they have this tool we try our

148best to stop these things from getting through our website but this is how you check your child's history and you know this is you know in some of the ways I've already started this by having the PTO presidents kind of you know trying to elevate that voice I mean so I can do it through some of these sure but there's issues and and you know how do we not make it an issue but also to recognize that we're trying to ensure a safe you know and what happens is you don't know what you don't know I think it's great intentions so what's the directive of the committee what will they be directed to do just provide well one of the things I mean as Beth mentioned you know we can just start identifying these are

149things in terms of making you aware that they're out there this you know I I know that there's there's legislative issues that are trying to make something either more liberal you know or more conservative you know for lack of a better term um and what I don't want to do is all of a sudden kind of ignore it and all of a sudden we lose more students because somebody says that's not what I want we can say but oh that's fine this is public school well then public gets smaller and smaller smaller because somebody's looking for alternative yeah because we've been ignoring what's going on I'm just trying to figure out not to get find ourselves to come I don't want the headline you know to be the Keel headline or you know and it

150was here but there was stuff going on here and to say that there wasn't would be wrong right uh you know but I would have to tell you you know and I've already shared a couple articles with you in terms of social emotional learning it's out of control I think I I think we are getting consumed by everything but academics uh you know so it's a it's a real issue because you know I'm trying to you know use the rudder here to steer us through this but I can get whipsawed because of you know we respond to one of our public groups or you know that that you know has concerns with what we're doing well how do you want me to deal with this you know just because I recognize that I don't believe

151you know I'm not advocating because I don't know that there's a problem so for uh Equity inclusion but that's that's a big Trend right now uh you know so everybody's promoting it I'm saying everybody what the Supreme Court I guess even what's that everybody but the Supreme Court yeah but you know I you know it's just one of those issues we've identified it in the in you know it's like the elephant in the room you know waiting for the shoe to drop and I'm trying to keep distractions you know so that we keep our focus in terms of helping kids read and do math keeping the main thing to maintain keeping the main thing the main thing but it's very challenging and we get consumed by some of these conversations sometimes where the board you

152know staff can be exhausted at our meetings too because are you guys exhausted over there but you know so so it's trying to figure out is there a way to be proactive with this I mean it was just a you know some parents were concerned and I and I think other than I'd look into it and we were looking into it maybe there's some problem with the firewall uh maybe it's a problem with informing parents you know and also the problem got resolved to the extent that that no longer exists so somehow it took care of itself otherwise I would continue to pursue it but you know I'm just trying to figure out you know how do I deal with these issues when they come up or do we just wait till we have a

153problem I don't like the ostrich defective just putting their hands heads in the sand so I like your idea of being proactive however you know like we can't as in your position like it can't be four committees in one area and then not four committees in the other area when it doesn't suit you yeah so like that's where it's like wishy-washy yeah so I think trying to give a mission or a vision of the committee to tackle these issues um proactively seems like a solution that would be most Equitable for everybody's interest however it's not going to be fun but it gives you a gives it a path I mean I already somewhat have a pathway by you know I mentioned you know a special ed not parents you know group you know having them

154bring in to make sure that we understand their concerns for that the the PTA presidents is another one of my concerns is it seems like we go every place but the schools for information and now we're reporting what the outside is telling us that we're doing or not doing I'm thinking oh my goodness who's in control you know and so how do I get this back where the source of information is the schools give us an exam I mean I don't want to like the replica of the religious police in Iran on this stuff you know I mean I don't want to like say wow put your put your put your scarf on or you know we beat the hell out of you um I don't I don't know what kind of issues I mean

155there's issues over trans stuff there's certainly issues over inclusion uh I mean the reason why is because our minority students are performing at a much lower rate than the majority students and and we were called on the carpet by BPI on that one so I don't I don't think that you know I mean but but there's a lot of disagreement in the whole in the whole body politic about all this stuff I'm not so sure that we could we can take sides to work to inform the board of what these issues are out there um you know in terms of how I'm you know navigating through this uh you know there's information for example where there's you know for example do you want to be taking positions on certain things for example right now um

156there's a directive that's going to try to let transgenders be in in sports uh you know in terms of making it harder to to not allow that to happen do you have a position on that um do you want to be proactive about that in terms of uh or is that something that just it's already been discussed in the legislature right isn't there already a policy on that yeah has a policy on that I think are in this above our our pay grade isn't it I don't know if it's above our pay grade I mean at least certainly you could talk about it because there are a lot of issues with you know biological males that are putting competitions against females and why it's a parent of four females I you know I want to

157be thrilled if my daughters were losing opportunities to biological and so my point is is do we wait till something happens here and then we figure out how to resolve the issue or do we you know um I mean that's how it's going not not to it's if we are going to be a legislator you know through that we need to make legislation and it needs to be a challenge so so you kind of ran into a wall there no but I think because they're challenged by litigation or like but I thought there was a I thought there was a bill to like in in the in the assembly and I don't know whether a pastor or not but I know the Athletic Association for the the school systems has taken positions on that right

158and I don't think we I think we basically have to accept that don't we well I well I'm not totally against a lot of what I read anyway as far as what WIA has like it and they are you can't unless a lot of these things right so I'm not completely against the government yeah we I mean right now um um I know Beth will back me up on this but I right now you know if if we didn't follow wia's rules we can't play nwia and Manitowoc will not stand for us not to be competitive in sports yeah it's never going to happen right so if we go ahead well I'm just you know the computer thing but I don't I don't think any parent wants their kid yeah surfing where they shouldn't be

159and I think that's something that as a district we can say hey this this this this this can help that you're gonna have to talk to your son or daughter about it you know but we can give them ways to find out if Johnny or Susie has been to that site by checking the history telling them how to do that some of these other issues I understand what you're saying that they're out there but they're very decisive almost more political you know when I hear inclusion I think of my daughter and I'm really happy she was included right and that was that was that was our primary focus was was was right so so my question is how did that become bad all of a sudden well and and and she's very diverse and and

160I'm like it's not bad that Maddie's different that's a good thing and and so I think some of these issues that are more political are things that voters will figure out and people will figure out as they start getting even more educated so I don't know if we have to take that on until we have people marching at our schools that don't want Dei but I think don't want one the Dei is that what that's called yeah that's the l-d-e-i-crp it's all safe we just have to focus on look we we are going to welcome every kid as diverse we're going to include kids on our programs as much as we can and and you know what we we probably should follow those WIA rules because if we would come out saying something different and

161there's a kid in our district who wants to compete and they can't probably got to sue us you know I mean so so those things are taken care of by different groups and yeah and we may have people that come in or we may have people coming in that don't want certain books in the library we'll have to handle that when it happens but there like I said there are things we can do to help educate parents on some of the issues you know my hope would be that we would do that that maybe somebody in our tech ed Department could say hey do this and this and this and that'll stop now we're not going to be able to stop them from going to their cell phone and using that but that's where you

162have to sit down and have a talk with your son or daughter you know they're in the wrong place I don't I don't think anybody hears in favor of pornography but I I'm not so sure that I'm I'm I'm against controversial you know I mean I think I mean on the books in the library I you know I would be just as a as an individual appalled if they were just out and out you know smutty porn right and I would say why the hell are we spending our money on that yeah but there is a kind of the the controversy comes at this sort of this borderline where it's a book about you know gay kids or something like that and and somebody in the community says we shouldn't ever be doing that et

163cetera Etc that's controversy they have a right to like their opinion and they have you know but but the thing is is that now other parents would say well I think my kids should should know about you know about gay kids and it's not all that bad etc etc so there it becomes you know I there it becomes a controversial issue and parents have to be the adjudicators on that and I think if we said oh gee you know four people said they didn't want any books in the library that dealt with with homosexuality or any of that sort of stuff say gee it's a free country but you know the fact of the matter is is that you know it's not that cut and dried and you don't get to decide you're only four

164people so why no why no I I I totally agree with the fact that there's a difference between that controversial the fact of whether or not they're reading books with with um gay kids in the books and all that that's not a big deal but I I stem to think of of an instance where I was watching a lady bringing up a book that they're reading and it wasn't talking about gay kids they were talking about teaching the gay kids how to perform those sexual acts that's a different story I think people are really wanting to get out of there if there's a a story that happened I think yeah that's all over now it's the those types of things are Way Beyond I think it okay he said it's a fine line but I

165really think that's like jump over the fence okay all right you know one of the things I will inform the board of things that are out there that are coming they're confronting schools and we're the education establishment seems to be going and if there's an issue that the board feels like we need to talk about it more we than we can put it on the agenda it becomes a judgment yeah sure I guess I would say continue to I mean don't think that this is a a BL end-all to the discussion I think that you know this is going to be ongoing and you know as as a board I think when it's appropriate for us to um tighten up a policy or a stance or something regarding something that might be um well this

166is mentally beneficial s we're publicly talking about something not in a controversial way but you know recognizing these things out there there are many things that are knocking on the door of public education and it's becoming more and more challenging you know in terms of what our role is right I mean I would agree with you 100 I think too many districts are losing their focus and you know that probably explains a lot of the reason why scores have been taking it's not just here they're just getting into social issues right I mean yeah and I think that you know when I went to school I mean you kind of learn about that stuff but you spend more time recording kind of core instruction and I feel that we're taking steps to back in that

167direction and yeah I think over time I think you're going to see the results improve and that's really what we all want to see yeah I don't think we should be fighting the culture wars right yeah I agree I just don't think that we should break and I agree with you let's not bring that into the schools right so that I think everyone is more or less in agreement on that so let's just as Jim says keep the big thing the big thing and foreign like you said you're going to have a mob come and say hey we don't want this and it'll be too late that's what he's trying to say well I think it's a good idea if you don't agree with my parents but if you just shut your mouth and agree

168with it then everything will be fine that's that's kind of what's happened and then what committee do you want to throw the controversials and maybe curriculum or buildings and grounds just whatever we're whatever whatever committee you feel like you have to throw it in that week in that week yeah that's what he's trying to say though he's trying to add a committee right now but now everybody just said well don't know we don't want to add High we wanted to just throw it into a committee when we get a committee for it you're not giving a very good interaction one of the one of the things you know again I I established ETA presidents kind of as a superintendent advisory and I'm also trying to elevate their voice in their schools okay and I'm trying

169to to start getting the conversation back into our schools and not in these special interest groups that are trying to deal um advocate for certain things you know and and that's just what I'm doing and this this just helps because I'll I'll you know continue to keep you informed even though everybody sends me information too uh to try to keep in terms of where it's going where legislation may go because I think that's the issue is that you know you get two or three people that bring this one and two or three people did this one and it's sort of like like what do we want our superintendent to be doing with these do you want him to spend his time charging this horse on each one of these and I don't think that that's

170how we want him to be spending his time but I think we need to give him some direction on because I'll tell you if he if he does do the wrong thing that we didn't think he should do he's gonna hear about it yeah that might be there might be a difference from opinion on what the rough is I guess oh that's your hand weight yes it's more like well there's actually a way to do it on these machines but I don't know if we can oh yeah um what what I would say is uh continue Community engagement okay I I would not be in favor of a body that is focused on controversial issues absolutely not because you know what you're going to get you're going to get the flat earthers coming in determined

171show you that the Earth is flat and that the other views are controversial it's really good so you have to cover Flat Earth and that really shouldn't be the goal but if we continue Community engagement everywhere then these issues will come forward and you meet with one group and somebody brings up an issue and you explain where the district is at this time if it's something where you don't have clear Direction I I don't have clear Direction on that that is not something we've resolved if you hear it from several places then maybe something we need to take a look at if it's one person if if you go to three different meetings and it's the same person at all three meetings bring up the same thing yeah and you know it's somebody working the

172circuit you know and these things really happen I'm just looking at this practically oh that's really good Leonard well you know you know you know what I'm experiencing because I mean one of the things you know one of the first questions I got from the radio station was are you Banning books I said no we're just keeping pornography out of the schools yeah well legally you can't have it there anyway um and um so of course you're not going to have pornography in schools um and legally you can't have it in libraries either but so that's just the reality of state law well it's just but I guess that's the same question special interest groups that are trying to you know influence in terms of the conversation or to make the conversation something that it's

173not right absolutely so I would say what I would say to everybody is you know when there is a report um from Jim that gives us an update and one of those things is in there that he's reporting please go to him or bring it up to have it on um a meeting if you think it's something that is um kind of happening over and over and over that we're like you know what maybe we should start to address this the only thing I include is to when you have those kind of complaints just get the name of the person because as Chris said a lot of people go to a lot of different meetings sometimes it's one voice or two voices and they're just constantly like so just you know make sure that it's

174there's a difference between one person complaining and having a huge issue about something and we just have to be careful because we just got to focus on educating kids rather than getting into Political things right amen all right well um I appreciate all of you taking time to um hash some of this out um so we have a motion to adjourn move I don't know it's only 7 30. it is already motion nine seconds yeah it's a true lady already motion we didn't vote yet it's on the table and now it's time in a second do you know who the motion in second is she does okay all those in favor say aye aye any opposed bye-bye overruled okay thank you everybody good [Laughter]